Pas de deux with Absence

When the lights fade, a candy package from the back row explodes over my head and those of some in my row. Hushed laughter in the darkness introduces the start of the show. I wonder if I am sitting in the wrong theatre that is instead performing a tragicomic piece by Pirandello.

But the revolving door begins to turn, performers enter the stage filled with chairs – surely Café Müller has begun.

The scene is an overlay of different times – repetition plays the main role. Each turned door opens a new dimension that unfolds on the stage, of which the dancers perform only a fragment. Space and time merge and the chairs remain the pivot of these overlapping realities, multiplying their number until they nearly fill the space. One performer seems to have control of this time-space window, he moves the chair to make space for those dancers too blind of love to see them. Even with his help, they struggle to meet. There are no margins where to move without crossing pain… but doesn’t matter.

“Spatial experience is not just visual, but multisensory,” as Edward T. Hall explains in his ‘The Hidden Dimension” (1969). “Any observant person has noticed that a wild animal will allow a man or other potential enemy to approach only to a given distance before it flees.” Pina unfolds the flight distance that our social body forgot to have deep inside as every wild animal on Earth. The cafè is full of chairs – invisible people seated on them. If there is no space – where does one fly? “The boundaries of the self extend beyond the body”, the only free place then is our interiority. 

Compared to space, overlaid and over-present, time unfolds slowly justifying the room full of every moment overlapped. A desperate man, a couple, a threesome, a lost woman, another threesome. Finally love, drama again. Seems like a normal weekend in Berlin for an open relationship. Everything is double, more than double. There are even mirrored screens to multiply reality (as if that were not enough). But one figure stands alone. She performs all the other’s moves but in a pas de deux with absence. She must be a Virgo. 

Pina Bausch came to Wuppertal in 1973 as head of the ballet department and gave the Wuppertal Ballet the new name Tanztheater. Her idea of ​​merging dance and theatre revolutionised dance and made her the icon of a new style of expressive dance. 

The Wuppertal Pina Bausch Dance Theater has shaped the history of dance and has celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. The French dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz (*1973) has been taking on this great challenge since the 2022/23 season. Boris Charmatz organized for the Berliner Festspiele an evening entitled “Club Amour” with a composition of three works – the piece “Café Müller” by Pina Bausch and two works choreographed by himself. All three pieces touch on themes such as desire, sexuality, nudity, intimacy and longing:

“In the first film versions of ‘Café Müller’ it is striking how much the actors desire each other. The bodies strive towards each other, anticipate each other, and the fingers seek contact. Theatre life overlaps with the lives of artists. The roles seem to be tailored to people’s dense network of relationships. That made me want to show the piece on an evening where love and desire are the focus.”
– Boris Charmatz.